VII. CINCINNATI— EARTH-WORKS, ETC. 11 



two and a half feet. On all sides, for miles, is a low clayey plane, inclined to be 

 wet, with very slight undulations. This is the only remarkable fact connected 

 with this work. Its ditch being external, and its openings narrow, indicate a work 

 of defence ; and if it were known that the ancient inhabitants of the Scioto used 

 palisades, we might safely conclude this to be a place of defence, relying solely on 

 artificial strength. There is no running water in the vicinity. 



PLATE IV. 



ANCIENT WORKS AT CINCINNATI (NOW OBLITERATED) . 



Figure A is nearly elliptical, the major axis being eight hundred and thirty, and 

 the minor seven hundred and thirty feet ; the height of bank two feet ; the breadth 

 of base thirty. The entrance on the east is ninety feet wide, guarded by two low 

 oblong mounds, a, a. From the entrance, to b, is a low wall, or high road, one foot 

 high, and nine broad, and b is a mound eight feet high, sixty feet broad, and one 

 hundred and twenty feet long. When, in the progress of city improvement, this 

 mound was removed, a large number of trinkets were found at its base. D is a 

 circular bank, one foot high, fifteen feet broad, and sixty feet in diameter. 



C appears to be a portion of an unfinished, or obliterated work, which must have 

 been large, perhaps including the works at A. At B is an enclosure, the parallel 

 sides of which are forty to forty-six feet asunder, seven hundred and sixty feet 

 long, about two feet high, with an opening on the south, thirty feet wide. 



F represents an oblong mound, thirty-five feet high, which, until 1843, was not 

 entirely obliterated. General Wayne, whose army encamped near it in 1793, cut 

 off the summit, in order to erect a sentry-box. It was in this mound that the 

 curious carved stone was found, which is described by Squier and Davis, in the 

 first volume of Contributions, page 275. P is an excavation, two feet deep, and 

 fifty feet across ; and m is a mound nine feet high. The high ridges to the east of 

 Duck Creek are about four hundred feet above low water, and composed of the 

 " Blue Limestone," a member of the Silurian system. 



The first bench is within range of high water, that is, sixty-one feet above ex- 

 treme low water. The second bench is composed of gravel, with strips of sand, 

 into which wells have been sunk at the work, A, ninety feet, to the level of the 

 river, before procuring water. 



The plateau rises towards the rear to one hundred and twenty-seven feet, at the 

 foot of the mountains, a mile and a quarter from the river. 



It is remarkable that the mound-builders of old, and the city builders of our own 

 times, selected in a great many cases the same sites. Portsmouth, Marietta, Circle- 

 ville, Chillicothe, Alexandersville, Frankfort, Piketon, and Newark, are on or near 

 the sites of the ancient cities. 



